Best Woodcock Hunting Dates in Western New York in the Last 25 Years

After this year’s woodcock hunting started slowly, I decided to seek some historical perspective by checking the log I’ve faithfully kept since 1993, the year I started hunting birds instead of bunnies. All the woodcock counted are from the single ZIPcode that is my home hunting ground.

“Slow hunting” to me means small numbers of birds flushed rather than a low number of birds killed. There’s lots of reasons why the number of birds killed over one hunter’s dogs on a given date is not a perfect indicator of birds flushed. Local coverts become overgrown and thus tougher to gun over 25 years. When I am hunting alone, I am less likely to pull a trigger these days unless the bird will be reasonably easy for my dog to retrieve — did I mention that it’s crazy overgrown here? — and unless my shot charge is not directed at the new houses that have erupted like sores on my good old hunting grounds. I could go on, but there’s no need. My point remains that birds in bag are not a perfect indicator of birds flushed.

But since birds in bag is the only data I’ve kept, I’m going to run with it while at the same time acknowledging its imperfection.

When I looked at the aggregated data, two things jumped out at me.

First, the median date for shooting my dogs’ woodcock here is October 22, which is exactly the median day of NY’s current 45-day season. This comes as a mild surprise to me, the halfway mathematical “precision” notwithstanding. I would have bet the date would have been a bit later simply because shooting is easier after all the leaves have fallen.

Second, the days between 10/6 and 11/4 account for almost 94% of all the woodcock my dogs have flushed and retrieved. Starting next year, I’ll look for something better to pursue in the “tail” dates of the season. Maybe trout. Maybe pheasants. Heck, maybe golf if the temps are well into the 70s.

Habitat loss due to human encroachment, I fear, seriously threatens my next spaniel pup from doing as well locally as did my first two. Even so, I’ll keep looking for new spots that may become available to try.